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A Better Way to Buy Politicians

President Obama’s recent endorsement of a Democratic “super PAC” — Priorities USA — that will support his re-election campaign makes one thing clear: money will dominate this year’s election like no other in history. Already, Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, has hauled in over $17 million from just 60 donors.

Big money has always played a role in politics, but the advent of super PACs means that America’s presidential candidates have effectively outsourced their campaigns to the megarich. The wealthy turn over big bucks to super PACs, which in turn make whatever arguments they want, often much dirtier than anything a candidate would want to attach his or her name to.

I’ve been involved in Democratic politics for two decades, and I’ve had a front-row seat to observe outside groups’ tightening grip on American elections and reformers’ repeated efforts to loosen it — efforts that I’ve always supported.

Tim Lahan

Nevertheless, I’ve decided that the best way forward may be to go in the opposite direction: repeal what’s left of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly known as McCain-Feingold, which severely limits the amount of money the parties can collect for their candidates.

Doing so wouldn’t get rid of the role of money in American politics. But by channeling it back into the parties, it would reintroduce accountability to the system, the lack of which is what makes super PACs so pernicious.

First, a brief history: Before the passage of McCain-Feingold in 2002, donors could give unlimited amounts of money, but only to the political parties and their national committees. No-limit donations aren’t ideal, but at least they were accountable: the parties knew who was giving, how much was given and where it was spent.

Moreover, donors provided direct input in crafting a candidate’s message. Sometimes, donors got too involved, but at least they were working within the campaign, not around it.

McCain-Feingold limited contributions to national party committees; it also forbade independent political advertising by outside groups within 30 days of a primary or caucus and 60 days before a general election.

But, as the Beltway proverb goes, money flows like water downhill, and large donors soon found a way around the law. They pumped cash into the first iteration of outside groups — so-called 527s, after a reference to the relevant section in the tax code — in the 2004 election cycle, including the infamous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Senator John Kerry.

Rules governing the new 527s were vague, and the Federal Election Commission did a poor job of designating which groups were subjected to a $5,000 donation limit as “political action committees.” Many decided to accept unlimited money regardless, risking federal fines for doing so.

In January 2010, the Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case cleared up any ambiguity: it permitted unlimited donations to all outside expenditure organizations, which could advertise right up to the day of the election, as long as they didn’t communicate directly with the official campaign.

In short, candidates have become little more than proxies, as the wealthy attack one another on issues in which they have a direct, often financial, stake: Wall Street regulation, climate change, health care and foreign policy. Candidates running for America’s highest office have no control over the potentially billions of dollars being spent on their behalf to stake out positions they may or may not agree with.

But therein lies a potential solution, too. The moneymen behind super PACs may enjoy the freedom to spend money however they want, but in my experience, they would prefer the old system, where at least they knew the candidate was on the same page.

The best way to return to that is to loosen the rules that drove the two apart in the first place: in other words, repeal federal limits on party donations, the one important part of McCain-Feingold that Citizens United didn’t touch. Limits on transfers between party committees and candidates should also go.

This way, donors might have more direct leverage over candidates, and the candidates would consider the donors’ concerns, but ultimately the latter would choose the language and packaging in which the concerns were presented, if at all.

Other steps could follow: more aggressive reform would include a “matching” program, linking big money and small. The parties could raise all the money they wanted, but could spend it only once big money was matched by small donations.

If we’re going to have unlimited donations, it should at least be controlled by the parties. After all, wouldn’t you prefer that donors merely suggest candidates’ concerns, rather than pick their words and messages?

Lindsay Mark Lewis, the executive director of the Progressive Policy Institute, was the finance director for the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2006.

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Weekly pieces by the Op-Ed columnists Charles Blow and Ross Douthat, as well as regular posts from contributing writers like Thomas B. Edsall and Timothy Egan. This is also the place for opinionated political thinkers from all over the United States to make their arguments about everything connected to the 2012 election. Yes, everything: the candidates, the states, the caucuses, the issues, the rules, the controversies, the primaries, the ads, the electorate, the present, the past and even the future.